Too Big to Know

Rethinking Knowledge Now That Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room is the Room

David Weinberger

Basic Books

2012 getAbstract International Book of the Year

We used to know how to know. We got our answers from books or experts. We’d nail down the facts and move on. But in the Internet Age knowledge has moved onto networks. There’s more knowledge than ever, of course, but it’s different. All the nails have been pulled up, topics have no boundaries, and nobody ever agrees on anything.

And yet, this is the greatest time in history to be a knowledge seeker…if you know how. In Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room, Internet philosopher David Weinberger shows how business, science, education and government are learning to use networked knowledge to understand more than ever, and to make smarter decisions than they could when they had to rely on mere books and experts.

This groundbreaking book shakes the foundations of our concept of knowledge-from the role of facts, to the value of books, to the authority of experts—providing a compelling vision of the future of knowledge in a connected world.

Praise for Too Big to Know

Too Big to Know is a stunning and profound book on how our concept of knowledge is changing in the age of the Net. … It is a true tour-de-force written in a delightful way.
— John Seely Brown, co-author of The Social Life of Information and A New Culture of Learning

With this insightful book, David Weinberger cements his status as one of the most important thinkers of the digital age. If you want to understand what it means to live in a world awash in information, Too Big to Know is the guide you’ve been looking for.
— Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind

Razor-sharp analysis of the state of knowledge in the age of computer networking.
—Kirkus Reviews

David Weinberger is one of the Internet’s clearest and cleverest thinkers, an understated and deceptively calm philosopher who builds his arguments like a bricklayer builds a wall, one fact at a time. … As the net evolves, [Weinberger] continues to be relevant — and indispensable.
—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

Weinberger’s book is full of relevant and thought-provoking, insights that make making it a must-read for anyone concerned with knowledge in the digital age.
—Publishers Weekly

If anyone knows anything about the web, where it’s been and where it’s going, it’s David Weinberger…Too Big to Know is an optimistic, if not somewhat cautionary, tale of the information explosion that is just underway.
— Steven Rosenbaum, Forbes